Reduction of Serum Vitamin B12 Levels among the Female Patients with Breast Cancer (Case Study: Sulaimania city- Iraq)

Background and objectives: Breast carcinoma is one of the most common malignant diseases among women worldwide. In Iraq there are noticeable elevation in incidence rates and prevalence of advanced stages of breast cancer. Cobalamin (vitamin B12) is essential micronutrient involved in one carbon metabolism and DNA methylation, which affects cancer. All of these may be change in breast cancer. The present work was designed to estimate and compare serum vitamin B12 among female breast cancer patients (60 ones) and healthy control subjects (60 ones) in Sulaimania city. Methods: This is a case-control study conducted on sixty cases of newly diagnosed women with breast cancer, the control group include sixty healthy women. Serum vitamin B12 levels were estimated by electrochemiluminescence immunoassay (Elecsys) method. Data was analyzed using the software SPSS (Ver. 22) including frequency and percentage for categorical variables. Pearson chi-square test was used for analysis of all categorical variables. Results: In this study we found that serum vitamin B12 levels were significantly (p=0.01) lower in breast cancer patients as compared to healthy control subject. There was no association between serum vitamin B12 levels with estrogen, progesterone, and HER2 receptor. Conclusion: Given the results, it can be concluded that serum vitamin B12 is consistently lower among breast cancer patients. There was no association between serum vitamin B12 levels and hormones receptors status, indicating clinical implications for the interpretation of serum vitamin B12 levels. Therefore, it should be taken into consideration by physicians and cancer specialists.